As a freelance web developer and owner of WPCustomization, I’ve used WordPress with many clients – and they love it. WordPress is easy to learn and its back-end is easy enough to customize for certain situations. Not many visitors ever see the back-end of a WordPress-powered site, but it’s always nice to brand the admin a bit – whether it’s a structural overhaul or simple color changes. With that said, we’ve decided to collect six plugins that are quite useful when branding the WordPress administrator area. Check it out.
The next few plugins let you customize the login screen. Some are simple and let you change the logo, others extend to color schemes and page structure.
Login and Logos
WPCandy’s Login Logo plugin
Looking for simple? We have simple. The Login Logo plugin lets you change the logo on the login screen (what else?). Simply upload the file, paste the URL into a textbox, save, and you’re done. See it in action.
Download our Login Logo plugin
Custom Admin Branding plugin
Pressing Pixels’s Custom Admin Branding plugin has two main features: a custom login screen and branded headers and footers in the admin area. The plugin comes with Photoshop templates so you can design your own login screen. When your images are finished, upload them to the server and your login screen is instantly changed.
You can also upload a logo to the site that will display in the header in lieu of the standard site title in the Georgia typeface. The Custom Admin Branding plugin also lets you add your logo to the admin’s footer along with a link to your website. This plugin also comes with support for Ozh’s famed Admin Drop Down Menu plugin.
Download the Custom Admin Branding plugin
Branded Login Screen plugin
Kerry Webster has put out two awesome branding plugins for WordPress – one for the login screen and one for the rest. I’m not sure if he has plans to combine the two, but they’re both certainly worth a mention in this article.
Similar to the Custom Admin Branding plugin, Kerry’s version comes with some Photoshop templates that set you up for creating a custom login screen. Upload the files to the server and you’re ready to go. No messing around with options pages here!
Download the Branded Login Screen plugin
Branded Admin plugin
Kerry’s Branded Admin plugin is basically the other half of the previous Pressing Pixels plugin. You can upload your site’s logo to replace the title text in the header and swap out your own icon for the default WordPress icon in the footer.
Download the Branded Admin plugin
Colors
Easy Admin Color Schemes plugin
James Dimick really went all out with this one. He took advantage of the new color schemes feature and created this plugin to help you create your own custom color schemes from scratch.
First, you create a new color scheme through an options page. From there you can set four primary colors, which will then be automatically added to the scheme’s CSS. You can also directly edit the CSS if there are any particulars you want to take care of. Additionally, the options page offers a live preview of the new admin so you can easily play with the new admin’s look. There is also the option to import colors from a CSS file. Importing and exporting tools are available as well.
Download the Easy Admin Color Schemes plugin
Ozh’s Admin CSS Designer Tool
Ozh decided to mix in COLOURlovers integration with this plugin. It uses COLOURlovers.com’s new API to let you scan through palettes and pick a good color scheme for your blog. The Admin CSS Designer Tool also allows you to use a standard color picker to choose your own colors or randomize the selection. Read our full review
Download the Admin CSS Designer Tool plugin
Conclusion
WordPress is becoming an increasingly popular CMS to use with clients. It’s easy to learn and customize, and with these plugins, you can even brand the admin to match the company’s existing identity.
Post Revisions:
- 6 August, 2010 @ 4:02 [Current Revision] by dan philibin
- 5 August, 2010 @ 5:50 by Ryan Imel
- 26 June, 2008 @ 6:00 by Ryan Imel
Posted June 26, 2008
Scott said:
Great stuff as always. Thanks for the post.
Here’s one more for ya – I’ve been looking for this one.
Admin Drop Down Menu
http://planetozh.com/blog/my-projects/wordpress-admin-menu-drop-down-css/
No more clicking 2 or more times to get to the page you’re looking for. WooHoo!
on June 26, 2008 at 11:20 pm
The Frosty said:
Cool, I have a version of the admin and login screen installed, but I think it’s some other plugin..
on June 27, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Michael Clark said:
Should NUMBER in the first paragraph be “6″ instead?
on July 2, 2008 at 8:11 am
Dan Philibin said:
Haha, yeah. Thanks for catching that.
on July 2, 2008 at 8:12 am
liam said:
Wow, very nice. Something I’ve overlooked but will have a serious think about.
on July 3, 2008 at 9:42 pm
mkjones said:
These are nice but I kind of hoped this sort of thing would be built into 2.5 by default.
on July 11, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Chris Mueller said:
I have used WordPress for a long time, even went to WordCamp New York, and never heard of these plugins. This looks great!
on December 1, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Rebecca said:
Thank you for listing these plugins – you saved me a lot of time. Thank you!!
on January 20, 2009 at 4:10 am
Emil said:
My client asked for WP Branding and the fastest one out there was Pressing Pixels. It lets you brand the admin login, dashboard header/footer, pretty fast and so easy.
Thanks,
Emil
on February 26, 2009 at 1:36 pm
inspirationfeed said:
This was very helpful, thank you!
on May 9, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Troy Dean said:
Hey Gang,
I think we may have a great offering in this space now. Our White Label CMS plugin allows you to rebrand the login screen and the dashboard as well as remove unwanted panels and menus from the dashboard. It really helps to hand over a clean CMS to your clients.
http://www.videousermanuals.com/white-label-cms/
Cheers.
on May 24, 2010 at 7:16 am
Christopher said:
The white label plugin is very sweet. Thanks for tossing that in.
on August 18, 2010 at 11:07 pm
Alberto Douglas said:
Is these plugins compactable with wordpress 3.0.
on August 19, 2010 at 11:43 am